Bengaluru. It says much about the scale of the M Chinnaswamy stadium and the way 50-over cricket is now played that Australian openers David Warner and Mitch Marsh made dazzling centuries and shared a near-record opening stand and Australia made 9/367 and yet for 40 overs Pakistan looked on track to reel it in.
They made a century start of their own and until the 40th over kept the target in range, but at long length Australia’s imposing score collapsed in on them. Two breakthrough wickets for Marcus Stoinis, bowling in relief, and four more coolly taken wickets for leg-spinner Adam Zampa, all buttressed by a superb set from Josh Hazlewood, made certain that Australia’s imposing total would not go to waste.
Flat pitch, mini-boundaries and T20 mentality made for 672 runs for the day. No-one was bowled and barely a ball passed the bat. Between them, the two teams creamed 60 fours and 25 sixes. The exuberant crowd loved it, but maintained diplomatic neutrality by chanting frequently for RCB, their IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore.
But first things first. The partnership between Warner and Marsh – on the latter’s birthday – was the fourth highest for any wicket in Australian one-day history and the second best at a World Cup. It was Warner’s 21st one-day hundred and, extraordinarily, his fourth in a row against Pakistan, spread over six years.
It was Marsh’s second one-day century, but he might never make one crisper. They reached their milestones from successive balls and rejoiced as much for one another as for themselves.
Warner’s day, and Australia’s, might have run a different course if Pakistan’s Usama Mir had not dropped the sitter of the year at mid-on when Warner was 10. Warner speedily put it behind him. Later, he explained the mindset in play as he and Marsh batted.
David Warner congratulates teammate Mitchell Marsh for scoring a century during the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup match between Australia and Pakistan.Credit: AP
“One of the things I established early on in my career is that 50 overs is quite a long time.” he said. “Having played Test cricket, you actually can take that out there and change the gears quite easily. I try to get to 35 overs. And then from there, try and put my foot down if I’m still in.”
Warner and Marsh raised 259 for the first wicket before Australia dissolved, losing 9/108 to settle on a score that Warner thought was barely par. “I felt today we missed a little bit with the bat. We set our platform up very, very well,” he said. “We didn’t execute as well as we’d like as a batting unit. I thought 400 was probably on the cards from where we were.”
But in Warner’s estimation, Pakistan misjudged the time they had. Scoreboard pressure will do that. Their last hurrah was a flurry of sixes from Mohammad Rizwan and Iftikhar Ahmed on the verge of the 40th over. “When Iftikhar came in and started teeing off, you just had that feeling that one was going to go to hand,” said Cummins. It did, and stayed there.
Early in Australia’s innings, this correspondent took meticulous note of three things: the chance dropped by Usama that was so easy he could have caught it in his mouth, and the first two sixes, Marsh’s straight drive and Warner’s flick to leg. They all seemed significant then.
The dropped catch certainly was. It was as costly as any in the history of the World Cup, releasing Warner to make another 153. It actually prompted a shocked hush in the otherwise boisterous stadium.
Pakistan’s Usama Mir dropped a catch of Australia’s David Warner.Credit: AP
The sixes proved to be two of dozens. This quickly became the afternoon of short boundaries and long handles. Blows over the rope and fence came along almost as often as auto rickshaws, tooting like them. Warner and Marsh belted nine each.
What was instructive was that there was no exotica among them, no ramps, laps, reverses or other shots that sound like afflictions. Simply, the Australian pair pounced on anything and everything that was not on the spot, knowing that if they made clean contact, bowlers and boundaries were helpless.
Measuring mattered as much as counting. Only one of the sixes was longer than 83 metres – Warner’s blow hit the overhanging eave of the grandstand at long off – and the shortest was 59 metres. Steele Sidebottom kicked a goal from further away in the AFL grand final. After a while, I stopped recording sixes. The number no longer was as relevant as the aggregate, and besides, there was no more room.
Warner’s aptitude and appetite for runs at 37 is freakish, but no-one in the team can clatter the ball quite like Marsh at his best. When not clearing the boundary, Warner and Marsh were just as prolific in reaching it, Warner by hitting gaps, Marsh by making them as surely as if with a punch. This was far from a punching bag of an attack, but at times it was made to look like one.
Haris Rauf’s first four overs cost 59 and the first ball of his fifth disappeared for six before he picked up Warner on the long-on boundary. Two more sacrifice wickets gave him figures of 8/0/83/3, a collector’s item. Call it Haris-ment.
Usama’s afternoon was dizzying. Apart from the howler of the tournament, he had two catches dropped off his own bowling, then took a good one at leg gully to finally dismiss Marsh. Cliched as it sounds, he bowled better than his figures show. They all did, really. They just got caught in a storm.
Crafty spin brought a lull of sorts and if a hair could be split, it would be that Warner and Marsh were so intent on boundaries that they neglected available singles. As the score mounted, they must have seemed like trifles. Warner said it was all part of a plan not to overreach.
At a drinks break, Warner and Marsh were provided with chairs. On the face of it, they’d provided the rest of the team with armchairs. Four hundred looked on, 450 even.
In a weird way, the mammoth opening stand threw out the rest of the innings. Australia reshuffled their order, but most were caught between mindsets and succeeded only in throwing away their wickets.
From the fall of Warner, Australia made 42 runs from 46 balls for the rest of the innings. They did not finish what they had started. That said, no team could have gone 50 overs at the openers’ rate. The bowlers were not meek enough for that. Shaheen Shah Afridi never retreated or slackened and finished with five wickets.
Starc’s first over in Pakistan’s reply read like a mistyped URL – .ww.ww..13 – and after two overs he had 0/28. Both openers, Imam-ul-Haq and Abdullah Shafique were dropped, heightening the tension. Their approach was methodical, threading more fours and fewer sixes than the Australians. At 0/134, it was game on.
Australia dug deep into its reserves of bowling and sangfroid. Stoinis, an IPL veteran and Australia’s sixth bowler, dislodged both in successive overs with well-thought-out short balls and Babar Azam pulled Zampa to mid-wicket where Cummins took a smart catch. There were other cameos and as long as Rizwan lasted, so did threat. But he threw himself into a pull at Zampa, missed and was lbw, Australia could breathe. The last six wickets melted away.
Australia now have a five-day break and get a break of another kind when Travis Head meets them in Delhi. Firstly, though, Marsh was to celebrate his second birthday of the day. “Tonight’s Indian tradition cake in the face, I think,” said Warner.
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